Automobile theft is a prevalent problem in today's society. Auto theft usually falls into one of three categories: professional, joy riders and insurance fraud by owners. Common to both professional and joy rider automobile theft is the technique of temporarily short circuiting the ignition wires from within the passenger compartment and simply driving away. The average car thief will drive away within three minutes after he first touches the door handle. In contrast, the average police response time is nine minutes which means the vehicle is several miles away when the police arrive. Alarms are of little value since there are so many false alarms that people pay little attention when one goes off.
The best defense against automobile theft is to make the ignition wires inaccessible from the passenger compartment. When this is done, the thief must access the ignition wires from inside the engine compartment. This process takes a considerably longer period of time and works to protect the automobile in two ways. First, the extra time to access the ignition wires from inside the engine compartment allows more time for the police to arrive, thus increasing the chances of catching the thief before he has a chance to escape. Second, the extra time required and the inconvenience of having to go into the engine compartment will deter and discourage the would-be thief from stealing the automobile.
What is needed is an apparatus which will effectively prevent a would-be thief from accessing the ignition wires from the passenger compartment. This apparatus should be simple, inexpensive and be equally applicable to older cars as well as newer ones.